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Europe needs to escape providerism

loeber.substack.com

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Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#22

Post by Racing0461 »

woodruffw wrote: post #2

For some definitions of wealth, surely. By most quality of life metrics, the average (Western) European is doing as well or better than the average American.

> most quality of life metrics

This is what we refer to as "europoor". Sure they have taxpayer funded "healthcare", council "housing", public "transportation" but it's not really what i would want for myself. Those things only exist because the middle class in europe is foced to give up a lifestyle of freedom/autonomy to average it out so the folks below them can get (1 + 0)/2. It won't stand on its own otherwise.

Thankfully the decision isn't being made for me by making those things prohibitively expensive to force me to live in urbania.

Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#23

Post by meheleventyone »

dividendpayee wrote: post #6
woodruffw wrote: post #2

For some definitions of wealth, surely. By most quality of life metrics, the average (Western) European is doing as well or better than the average American.

The article suggests heavily that, the way things are going, that's not going to be the case in the future. Right now, Europeans are still living off past prosperity, but if they don't build a real technology industry and innovate, then future Europeans will be much worse off.

It doesn’t really succeed in making that case though, there’s a lot of invective but few facts. If you used the same criteria as the author for the US outside of SV how does it compare?

And as for AI DeepMind is HQ’d in Europe!

Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#24

Post by Alcatros552 »

bequanna wrote: post #5
woodruffw wrote: post #2

For some definitions of wealth, surely. By most quality of life metrics, the average (Western) European is doing as well or better than the average American.

Can you cite some specifics? I’ve travelled to quite a few places in Europe and coming from the American Midwest, we are beating much of Europe in most/all QoL metrics by a mile. Much larger and nicer homes, larger properties, mincer automobiles, more variety of all consumer goods, higher incomes, more wealth and social mobility to name a few and I live in “flyover” country.

Take life expectancy https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-life-expectancy-ma... or take how we treat the elderly and you will know the difference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhlIiMgDxm4

Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#25

Post by pjmlp »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #12
askonomm wrote: post #4

And yet Europeans have vastly higher life quality than Americans ... I wonder why that is ...

Cars. Americans spend a ton of money on having cars and building car-centric infrastructure. Most European countries could not afford to do this.

Thankfully, I rather take public transport when possible.

Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#27

Post by lucideer »

I really like HN: the posts are on deeply interesting topics, & the userbase rarely fails to follow up with in depth technical analysis & insightful context in the comments.

It's a pity that every once in a while a post like this comes along & slaps you back to reality by reminding you that there's still a significant contingent that fit the stereotype of brain-dead growth-hacker valley types.

---

Reluctant as I am to get into debating this, the essential flaw in this thesis is that consumerism is inherently positive, & that by extension production of a wide range of consumer products is self-evidently proves the utility of such innovations.

A side feature is survivorship bias whereby US products will tend to dominate a globalist borderless market by virtue of that international market being constructed to serve the model pursued by US companies. This is less about European individuals being subject to Providerism & more about EU companies being subject to "competition" within a biased arena that extends beyond their borders.

Re: Europe needs to escape providerism

#29

Post by probablynish »

It's tempting to read just the headline and see an opportunity to express your views on the great Europe vs US online debate (everyone has a take), but the article does have an interesting thesis.

> If you wanted to regulate AI, I think you’d want to regulate somewhere at the production level, not at the consumption level. Why is it that the EU regulators are focusing entirely on the consumption level?

> Well, because they are consumers

> [...]

> I didn’t really get this until I moved to San Francisco. I had never in my life met people who make stuff.

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